As yet, neither Fox nor Schwartz are saying whether the new movie, X-Men: First Class will be a retro look at younger versions of familiar characters (like the Marvel comic of the same name), or a new team of mutants that follows on from the events of X-Men: The Last Stand (a la the comic Young X-Men). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Young writer Marc Guggenheim would prefer the latter, as he told MTV's Splash Page blog:

What movie would you rather see? There’s more in the next generation than the junior versions of the very first group, now that you already have movies where they’re established as adults. Do a sequel, not a prequel.

First Class comic writer Jeff Parker doesn't think that it's really about any characters in particular as much as it is a central concept, as he also told MTV:

To me, the heart of it is that young people who were different found others like themselves and for once, they didn't feel like freaks.

We agree... and with such a wide variety of unexplored mutants already in Marvel's library, we've come up with five that we'd like to see hit the big screen big time.

Cannonball
Call me old-fashioned, but there's just something oddly charming about a superhero whose only power is flying and crashing into things. It helps that Sam Guthrie is the sort of character whose intentions are good, even if he's not always the smartest guy in the room - Give High School Musical's Zac Efron the role and get that all important Disney Demographic interested.

Dazzler
It's Britney, but with superpowers. Who can resist the lure of a pop star who's also secretly a superhero - and whose powers rely on turning pulsing pop beats into laser light shows? So what if she's still stuck in the '80s despite numerous attempts to update her? She's the closest thing Marvel have to a mutant Miley Cyrus, and in terms of potential crossover marketing dollars, that can only be a good thing.

Pixie
Every X-Men movie needs a point of view character, and now that Rogue has spent three movies in the spotlight - or, really, one movie in the spotlight and then been drawn more and more towards the background in each successive installment - why not give Pixie a chance to shine? The brand-new X-Man (She officially joined the book in this year's Uncanny X-Men #500) is pretty much a clone of former teen POV character Kitty Pryde, right down to demonic weapon made out of her soul or something, to please the old school fanbase, plus she looks like a fairy, which'll bring in the Harry Potter crowd. It's win-win. Unless you happen to have something against things with wings.

Northstar
Despite Marvel continually killing off different versions of the character, there's too much potential in Canada's second-most-popular mutant (The movie Wolverine is still Canadian, right?) to keep him from the silver screen for too long. I mean, he's Marvel's first openly gay superhero, who also happens to be an Olympic gold medalist champion skier - no, really - and an asshole with superspeed powers. If Josh Schwartz really can't do something with that, then I want to know who really wrote all of those OC episodes I adored.

Xorn
This one's more unexpected, I admit. In fact, I'm not even sure if Xorn even officially exists in X-Lore anymore - He was (spoiler) a fake identity used by Magneto in Grant Morrison's run on the series early this decade, and later retconned into a real person whose identity had been stolen by Magneto, but I have no idea if that's just been quietly ignored these days or not. But nonetheless, there was something magnetic - no pun intended - about the silent, naive buddhist with a black hole for a head, and making him a character in his own right could provide an interesting counterpoint to the lights and violence that'll otherwise seep through the movie.

While it's good to have Chuck back, there's nothing special about "Chuck Versus The First Date." For all the talk about this episode acting as a second pilot episode, there's nothing here that you haven't seen done before — and, for that matter, done more entertainingly — in the show's first season. All of the show's cliches are checked off (Look! There's Big Mike being gruff! And the BuyMore employees getting all Lord Of The Dysfunctional Flies in the back of the store! Here's a hint that Sarah really does love Chuck, but can't tell him! Oh, isn't Casey sweet under that gruff exterior? etc.) , and in such a way as to make it feel lethargic and necessary instead of urgent and exciting. Using the threat of a new Intersect as a McGuffin for both of the show's plots before literally just blowing it up at the end of the episode in order to preserve the status quo, we're left with Chuck bemoaning the fact that his life is going to stay the same old drudgery forever more, with no chance of improvement... hardly the message to send viewers who'll have already spent the last hour feeling a distinct sense of deja vu.

It's possible that creator Josh Schwartz just gets flattened by the idea of a sophomore slump; his (and I am not ashamed to admit it) awesome The OC had a lackluster second year, after all, and concerns about the strike-induced false start of the show's first year may have made him feel that he needed to hit the reset button and repeat everything from the show's first year — but neither of those reasons, nor this treading-water opener, are good signs for what's coming up over the next twenty-one episodes. Here's hoping the second episode starts to push things forward again.

Chuck Versus The First Date [NBC]

Even though creator Josh Schwartz called the second season's first episode "like a new pilot for us," the show isn't looking to recreate itself when it comes back to screens; the new season will follow through on plot threads left over from the show's first season, cut short by the writers' strike, including Casey having to choose between his duty and his relationship with Chuck, the struggle for assistant managerdom of the Buy More and even a return by secret agent man Bryce "at the most opportune time."

Not that the series will just be resting on its laurels: New characters being added will include Chuck's long-lost love Jill (to be played by The Fast And The Furious' Jordana Brewster), new Nerd Herder Emmitt, and - most excitingly of all - Captain Awesome's parents, the Awesomes. Other guest stars will include former Julie Cooper Melinda Clarke, Sin City's Michael Clarke Duncan and - as we've already reported - tragic celebrity's Nicole Ritchie.

In terms of plot, we can expect to see Chuck get the chance of a normal life when a new Intersec is created, the CIA have to make Chuck into a faux Bill Gates in order to impress a girl and, in a plot that may or may not be a joke, Chuck's boss Big Mike to fall in love with Morgan's mother. Apparently, you can take the showrunner out of The OC, but you can't take The OC out of the showrunner.

Chuck returns September 29th.

[The Futon Critic]

According to the now-retracted report, Schwartz said that the project was "a prequel of sorts" and added:

I'm very well aware that I'll be bludgeoned by purists, but I love its mythology, and it comes with a pretty hefty paycheck... It's not like I'm adding new characters like Toaster Head, or anything like that. The Hulk looks like it's going to be terrible. And why does he look like he's fighting against the monster from Cloverfield? I mean, with Transformers, it's not like fans were going to come back saying, 'You used the wrong car.' This, however, is a different story. Brett Ratner didn't have a lot of credibility going in to the third X-Men movie, but I think Bryan Singer [who directed the first two installments] got a free pass on Superman Returns because of his work on X-Men.

In a blog post that appeared May 2 on bbook.com, some quotations by the subject Josh Schwartz were erroneously reported. Consequently, BlackBook immediately removed the item. We regret the error and extend our apologies to Mr. Schwartz.

Correction [Black Book] (via Blog@Newsarama)